In the margins on my Bible, I had the following notes for James 4:1-12 (presumably thoughts on a sermon or lesson I heard in the past):

We cannot underestimate the seriousness of sin
Jesus calls us to mourn our sins in acts of genuine repentance
If our natural reaction isn’t to mourn, we should pray for God to change our hearts
Our God deserves our full-hearted obedience & worship.

#3 stuck out to me as I was reading – are there times that we don’t mourn our sin? We try to make excuses for it, why it is ok for us to do it (and maybe not for someone else).

Usually, we try not to think about our own sin. But we do need to take time to reflect on our lives so that if we do have sin, we can repent and be forgiven.

I think in doing that, it can lead us better into #4. If we are mourning our sin, repenting, and asking God to change our hearts, that can help mold us to what God desires which obedience comes from and further leads us into a deeper worship.

In reading through these verses, I see how our selfishness and self-absorbedness can cause fights among one another, can lead us to seek out worldly pleasures, and to think too highly of ourselves.

Instead, we need to humble ourselves and work on selflessness as we turn to God. And there are some wonderful promises in this!

“Come near to God and he will come near to you…Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (vs 8 & 10)

I want to draw nearer to God, and He wants that too. He isn’t looking for ways to avoid us – He is looking for us to come to Him, and He will be right there with us.